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Recruitment
In Mount&Blade Warband, there are four main ways of recruiting new troops. The cheapest, most consistant, reliable and easiest method is to recruit Cultural recruits by visiting villages. The Culture of the recruit is determined by which nation held the village in the initial part of the game. Recruiting Cultural Recruits can be achieved by visiting a village (as long as you're not at war with the village's faction or the village is atleast indifferent to you) and selecting 'recruit volunteers', which come at ten Denars each (usually, the number of recruits you get depends on your reputation with that particular village). The second way to recruit party members is by going to a tavern, and paying bands of mercenaries to fight under you. As they are mercenaries, their promotion trees are different, and they often will cost much more than practical for a lower level player. You can also recruit freed prisoners from captured castles and towns or from other parties you defeat, or recruit from your prisoners by persuading them. The latter two methods are arguably unreliable ways to keep your forces maintained, however are useful in a number of situations. Cultural Recruits Cultural recruits are the basic means of buffing your party's manpower. Normally they are base units, Tribesmen or Recruits, however, if the village is wealthy enough and has a high enough positive relationship with the player, higher tier units(such as Nord Huntsmen) may become available; this is however, not necessarily beneficial, as it can limit the player to a predetermined tier path that is not what she wished(such as getting Khergit Lancers when wanting Khergit Horse Archers). Cultural recruits are weak, untrained and come ill equip for battle and will often fall, without support, to bandits and raiders or trained men, they can however, overcome small bands given sufficient numbers(or having a superior tactics level). As they gain experience through training or battle, they can be upgraded. Upgrading units makes them stronger and at some points, when the player is given the option of two different upgrades, can determine the path along the tier tree the unit takes. These points of diversity occur when there are different classes of unit to be had at the same tier in the upgrade tree. These normally fall where a unit can become either infantry, cavalry or archery specific. Aside from allowing units to become specialized they also become more powerful and skilled within their chosen specialization. Each time a unit is upgraded, a fee must be paid (Warband only) and their weekly wage increases, the cost of the next upgrade is also doubled with each tier, starting with ten Denars for a cultural recruit, one exception to this is when upgrading recruited looters to bandit level and bandits to cultural recruit level. Note: the top tier units of local recruits have higher stats and lower wages than their mercenary counterparts. Mercenaries Mercenaries are freelance warriors. They require higher wages, but their first tier unit is better than base cultural recruits. They can also be upgraded faster. You can upgrade your watchmen into hired swords very quickly. Bands of mercenaries are randomly generated from all levels of their tier tree in groups of around 4-8, in the taverns of towns. They require a sum of money, dependant on the number of men and their tier level, before they will join your party. If the player is unable to pay this 'recruitment fee' they may still recruit a fraction of the men with the relevant fraction of the total, the player cannot however choose the number desired. The player may only choose to take the maximum they can afford. Mercenaries are cheap and powerful when compared to low tier local recruits but at higher tiers they become weaker and often more expensive than their counter part units within the cultural tiers. Mercenaries are also not affected by cultural moral modifiers such as positive modifiers for being within home territory and negative modifiers for having to fight against their own nation. Prisoner Ranks Party members can also be recruited from captured prisoners, either your own or the enemies'. These methods are the only way to obtain certain units such as Bandits . Having defeated a party which held prisoners, you are given the option of recruiting them into your party at the same time you would be choosing prisoners of your own from the wounded ranks of your enemies(the option is given even if there are now enemy prisoners to take). Doing so cost one weeks wage in advance per unit, and is therefore much cheaper than training them from recruit level. Doing so is advantagous if you have lost men in extended campagins and are unable to return and train up new recruits. Prisoner units are also recruitable from the dungeons of captured castles and towns in a similar fashion, where it is espically useful for bolstering the garrison with units that would otherwise come from your own ranks as well as replenishing any units lost in the siege. You can only do this directly after capturing a town or castle, leaving the screen releases previous prisoners and confines any remaining prisoners from the battle are then stored in the fiefs dungeons. Note: You can take prisoners from dungeons of towns/castles you, personally, control but not directly recruit them. They are added to you prisoner ranks and can be recruited from there (see below). Finally the last method and arguably the least effective and efficient method of gaining troops is by recruiting them from your personal prisoners. This can be achieved by setting up camp, and taking the action "Recruit from Prisoners". Doing this has some advantages, notably it is the only method of obtaining party members free of charge (aside from specific Companions), though weekly wages are still required. It may also be of use if you have suffered heavy losses to bolster your forces before disbanding after appropriate measures have been taken to replenish your force. The disadvantages are however significant. Firstly, for each member that is accepted into the party you lose 3 party moral; secondly, they may not stick around for long and often more than 50% of the joining units escape during the night. The prices obtainable for the prisoners will cover the cost of recruiting and training a recruit to the same level along the path you wish and so selling and re-training men is more appropriate as it allows you to build an army more suited to your style of combat tactics. Mercenaries vs. Cultural Recruits 'Availability:' * Cultural Recruits won't join your party if your relationship with the village is negative or at 0 when you are at war with the nation holding the village. * Cultural Recruits become the much better source when you have a good relationship with a prospering nation and/or the specific village. * Mercenaries are always available in town taverns and will always join you for the right amount of coin. 'Diversity:' * Cultural Recruits can have a somewhat limited tier tree. i.e. With the Khergits you can only train horsemen, and with the Rhodoks you can only train infantry; although these troops are much more specialised than a Mercenary at the same level. * Mercenaries have a generally wider tier tree that includes heavy infantry, light/medium calvary and crossbowmen. * There are no kingdom-specific units in the mercenary's tier tree, e.g. Nord Huscarls or Khergit Horse Archers. 'Wage:' * Mercenaries require a relatively high recruitment fee and regular weekly wage. * It only takes 10 Denars per head to recruit from villages, Mercenaries are significantly more expensive. * Cultural Recruits require lower wages than their mercenary counterparts at the low tiers but it becomes pretty close when they advance to the final tier. 'Early Use:' *Cultural Recruits, if you want them to survive long enough to become more powerful, must be carefully watched and supported during battle and subsequently die much more easily than their mercenary counterparts, if they are not. *You must use a careful mix of getting them experience through fighting and keeping them alive. The Training skill can help immensely with this and allows you to keep them out of battle. *Mercenaries can be sent into battle almost immediately. They can almost always hold their own against bandits. *Another use for Cultural Recruits, if you have the money and multiple villages with good relations, is to hire them en masse and send them into battle in survival of the fittest fashion. 'Deciding Which to Choose:' *If you need a strong initial force to quickly respond to a situation (i.e. needing an army to join a campaign) and have extra coin, hire mercenaries to get the job done. *If you want a force that is more specialized (Vaegir Marksmen or Swadian Knights) or you are low on coin, recruits are the ideal choice. Category:Gameplay